“Devil Three to Sadie. What the hell? I had you a mile further north.”
“Quite,” responded the pilot. “Nav’s still there. I had to retrieve a souvenir.”
God damn Brits were worse than Hog drivers.
“Stay put, would you?” Doberman told him. “We have to smoke the rest of the Iraqis so the helicopters can come in..”
“It’s a starlit night and I feel all right,” sang the voice, laughing as if it were karaoke night. “But I’ve got company.”
“What the fuck are you saying?”
“More lorries down here,” said the Brit, his voice only marginally more serious.
“Yeah, whatever. Stay out of the cross fire, okay?”
Lorries? Did he mean trucks?
Goddamn Brits couldn’t even speak English.
CHAPTER 20
Hawkins tried to control his anger as he unfolded the paper map over the hump of controls between the two pilots at the front of the Chinook. The SAS sergeant slapped his small flashlight twice without getting the light to work.
“Figures,” muttered the sergeant.
Hawkins reached into his pocket and got his own.
“We’re here,” he said, pointing. “Sadie’s crew is about here.”
“Further south, and they’re busy,” said the pilot, pointing to the side glass. Flashes lit the horizon.
If they were going to hit the base, they had to get moving. The Apaches were well into their fuel stores, and even with the planned behind-the-lines refuel, they’d be pushing things. The Hogs, too, must be nearing their limit.
On the other hand, he couldn’t take the risk of flying the helicopters anywhere near serious antiair defenses.
Which, basically, was what Preston was concerned about, even if the shithead hadn’t spelled it out.
He didn’t even know Preston, but he had worked with two of the pilots in the support group, Doberman and A-Bomb. If those guys thought there was a problem, there must really be a problem.
One way or another, they’d probably lost the element of surprise.
Better to fail than never to try.
Unless failure meant twenty dead men.
“Our chaps,” said Sergeant Burns.
“They’re all our chaps,” said Hawkins. “We’re going to have to scrub.”
“I agree,” said the pilot.
Burns didn’t say anything. Hawkins bent his head slightly, studying the SAS sergeant’s face in the wash from the dimmed cockpit lights.
“Best thing,” said the commando finally.
“Let’s go grab the Tornado crew,” Hawkins told the pilot.
“Wait!” The co-pilot put out his hand, touching Hawkins as he listened to a transmission over the headphones. “The A-10s say there’s a second wave of vehicles approaching. They may light a flare. Looks like quite a snit.”
“Get me the Apaches, and then Devil One,” said Hawkins. “Plot that course but hold until it’s clear.”
CHAPTER 21
Doberman swung back to the south, climbing steadily. Devil Four completed the far end of a figure-eight about a half-mile ahead, still flying at six thousand feet.
“Three pickups that I see,” Gunny told him over the squadron frequency. “Moving toward the wreckage. I can nail them with the Mavericks.”
“Hold off,” Doberman told him.
Using Mavericks on relatively soft targets like pickups was a bit of an overkill. Had A-Bomb been his wingman, the response would have been along the lines of, “Going for the best bang for the buck,” or “Spoken like a real taxpayer.” But Gunny simply acknowledged.
“Devil Three, this is Devil One,” said Preston. “What’s your status?”
“Circling over the crew,” said Doberman. “Three Iraqi vehicles approaching, about a mile off, little more. There may be some ground troops near our guys. Can’t tell.”
“Flare?”
“Figure it’ll help them more than us,” said Doberman. “More than the Brits.”
“Concur. Can you take the pickups?”
“Shit, yeah.”
“They’re going to send the Apaches north to help out. Chinooks will stand by to pick up the boys a mile back,” responded Hack. “Lay it out for the Apaches.”
The way Hack said it, connecting the dots for him like he was an imbecile, pissed Doberman off. Preston was just a little too perfect and crisp, the kind of guy who never did any wrong and let you know it. He thought the rest of the world couldn’t cross the street if he wasn’t there to take its hand.
Doberman steamed while Hack read the com frequency for Splash leader — which of course he already had — and then reminded him that he was getting close to bingo — which of course he already knew.
“Repeat, Devil Three?” asked Hawkins, the Splash commander, as he snapped onto their frequency.
“Need you to move exactly three point five north, precisely north, from your position,” said Doberman, working it out in his head. “When you’re ready I’ll have our boys give you a flare.”
The Apache commander got a little pushy when he clicked on, saying they were less than three minutes from the battlefield and asking which vehicles he could take.”
“None. They’re all ours,” snapped Doberman, pushing the Hog’s wing over. “Finders keepers.”
CHAPTER 22
Captain Conrad played striker on the squadron soccer team, and while he was perhaps not the most gifted forward in the RAF, he had a certain quality of persistence and stamina that translated into points late in the game.
As it was late in the game now, he put his stamina to good use, running for all he was worth from the shadow of Sister Sadie as a flare shot upwards in the distance.
One of the vehicles the A-10 had hit earlier flashed with a fresh explosion as its gas tank caught fire. The noise caught him off-guard, unsettling his balance and sending him face-first into the ground. Conrad dropped the tape and had to hunt for it on his hands and knees, patting down the desert but finding nothing but sand.
He heard a roar and then loud secondary explosions. Grappling in the dust, he heard the distinct thump of approaching helicopters. Then he felt a rush of air — the A-10 had returned to attack the vehicles, which were closer to him than he’d thought.
The plane descended so low that its bullets passed only a few yards away, streaming in front of his eyes like a surgeon’s laser beam excising a tumor. The desert shrieked as the American lit his weapon in three distinct, brief bursts. Blue, red, green and orange lightning lit sideways across the sand, erupting in a pure white geyser so intense that dirt and smoke and grit filled Conrad’s eyes. He threw his head down, rubbing his face with his sleeve; he managed to clear one eye and groped again for the tape. Finding it, he stood, running again toward the sound of the approaching helicopter.
A small flare shot upward. His mate, no more than a quarter mile away.
Something this and dark shot between them.
Conrad stopped quickly. There were shadows all around; with the battle smoke, falling darkness, and swirling sand, he’d completely lost his bearings.
The A-10 danced above him, cannon roaring again.
He could hear a truck motor and the clicks of automatic rifle fire approaching. He thought he could see the moving shadow. Red glints pricked closer.
He waited for the Hog to hit the truck. But there were no geysers of burning metal, no secondary explosions.